Sell me on GNB or WAR - class fantasy

Hello, folks! Thank you for taking a moment to view my topic.

I’m looking forward to choosing a tank to play. I have all four leveled to a certain level, but I don’t know much about lore and fantasy of each one.

I do, however, know what I’m looking for.

I don’t want to play a tank who relies on magic or has to be lore-wise any other race than a human (personal preference, long story).

I’d prefer a tank with the fantasy of being akin to a 5e DnD Battlemaster or Vanilla WoW Warrior - flexible, able to have lots of ways to control the battlefield, both with tactics and brutal force. Not a barbarian, but a tactician, in a way.

The job must feel like a tank. Like someone whom allies can cower behind. A man who brings stability into the time of calamity, as they say. It must have grit and strength.

So I’m asking about these aspects (lore and fantasy included) and, the general ‘feel’ of the classes.


Thank you for your answers!

Warrior is the only tank in the game

If you're looking for Battlemaster or WoW Warrior, stay away from GNB.

People liken it to '3 DPS in a trenchcoat' because it plays the most like a DPS, with a much faster rotation than the other tanks and more emphasis on parries than blocking or armor.
Aesthetically, GNB's weapons are much smaller than you might want (you're basically smacking people with a shotgun) and its artifact armors, animations, etc. lean more into 'mercenary' than strictly 'protector'. Just look at Thancred post-Stormblood.

Honestly, PLD might be closer a Battlemaster than any other tank in terms of abilities and aesthetics, but you said minimal magic, so...

Personally, I love GNB, but for you, maybe try WAR.

Warrior is probably the only one that fits most of your criteria other than it does have a barbarian aesthetic. But with the right glams you can kinda ignore that.

Gunbreaker gets to be the 1 tank least like warrior. Warrior gets to be the best job in the game.

Thank you for the answers!

Hrm, neither?

Warrior doesn't feel like a berserker in actual gameplay at all, there's no enraging, attacks in general never carry weight in this game as they don't even need to animation-wise connect to deal damage (they can visibly whiff and still "hit"), meanwhile Gunbreaker is just a bog-standard tank job that mixes elements of other jobs but all your combat oGCDs are combined into one button that changes basedon what you pressed before it. Has nothing to do with shooting a cartridge to empower a weapon (in which case the cartridge-expenditure would be a button that does that, visibly, then you press the actual attack).

As far as job fantasies go, only Paladin truly delivers IMO. It's only a few buttons, but in particular Passage of Arms and Cover feel fantastic to use, and the spellsword comob works really well in making an illusion of big hits, at least compared to how floaty everything else in this game usually is.

Wait… is it me or does warrior use magic within him to summon the LB and the inner beast and all those volcanic-looking spells?

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Originally Posted by Kaptin_Bluddflagg

Wait… is it me or does warrior use magic within him to summon the LB and the inner beast and all those volcanic-looking spells?

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LB is not aetherial in nature, it's ... Endwalker-spoiler, so not putting that here.

I think of warrior's skill appearance as more of a visual manifestation of the rage they function on. As in if some onlooker was seeing the warrior fight, they would not see all the magma and crazy shockwave uber anime effects. The red glowing eyes tho, that is cool. Magic or not.

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Originally Posted by Carighan

LB is not aetherial in nature, it's ... Endwalker-spoiler, so not putting that here.

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I did finish endwalker. I… don’t understand.

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Originally Posted by Rabblerabble

I think of warrior's skill appearance as more of a visual manifestation of the rage they function on. As in if some onlooker was seeing the warrior fight, they would not see all the magma and crazy shockwave uber anime effects. The red glowing eyes tho, that is cool. Magic or not.

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A very good point!

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Originally Posted by Kaptin_Bluddflagg

I don’t want to play a tank who relies on magic or has to be lore-wise any other race than a human (personal preference, long story).

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So right out the gate we're getting rid of DRK and PLD because of magic. Lore-wise, there's no reason any job has to be any race, so that won't be a factor.

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Originally Posted by Kaptin_Bluddflagg

I’d prefer a tank with the fantasy of being akin to a 5e DnD Battlemaster or Vanilla WoW Warrior - flexible, able to have lots of ways to control the battlefield, both with tactics and brutal force. Not a barbarian, but a tactician, in a way.

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Hmmmm...both in terms of gameplay and in terms of lore, I don't think either WAR or GNB has anything significant to offer here. With very few exceptions, tanks tend to play the same. And as far as the lore goes:

• WAR is a job about having beastial fury, but learning to exercise control over it so that it can be used as a tool to protect — rather than endanger — your allies.
• GNB's lore is very sparse, so it's pretty easy to project anything you want onto it. They're kind of supposed to be a vanguard on the battlefield to draw enemy attention, but naturally this has no impact on any of your gameplay.

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Originally Posted by Kaptin_Bluddflagg

The job must feel like a tank. Like someone whom allies can cower behind. A man who brings stability into the time of calamity, as they say. It must have grit and strength.

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A lot of personal preference is going to go into this one, but if I were looking to be protected by someone, and I had to choose between the person wearing traditional fantasy armor with a giant axe that was exuding a visible aura of energy, and the person dressed up like Dante from Devil May Cry, I would choose the axe friend every single time.

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Originally Posted by Kaptin_Bluddflagg

So I’m asking about these aspects (lore and fantasy included) and, the general ‘feel’ of the classes.

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It's impossible to tell if this will change, but for no less than a year WAR has been the most overpowered tank. You're gonna be able to take a ton of damage and top off your health, you're going to be able to heal and protect your teammates, and you're never going to die unless you really mess up.

Oh, also, how do you feel about massive waves of energy radiating around your character? Because that's what you get with WAR. If you like that it's a reason for, if you dislike it's a reason against.

Hope this helps!

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Originally Posted by Kaptin_Bluddflagg

I did finish endwalker. I… don’t understand.

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Endwalker spoiler:

In the final battle of the Endwalker MSQ, they reveal that Limit Breaks are Dynamis-based.

Odd. I must have missed it.